the Beatles’ I Am The Walrus begins with,

I am he as you are he
as you are me
and we are all together.

Sitting on a cornflake,
waiting for the van to come.
Corporation tee-shirt,
stupid bloody Tuesday.
MAN, you been a naughty boy,
you let your face grow long.
I am the eggman, they are the eggmen,
I am the walrus, goo goo g’joob

what’s this song all about?

is there some hidden meaning here; something
deep, too deep, for me to grasp?

is the genius of Lennon, like that of Bob Dylan,
beyond my understanding?

Lennon answers these questions in the video below

the complete interview can be heard at the
The Lost Lennon Tapes

can the love we feel for someone fade completely,
eventually to be gone and forgotten?

or, does some trace, memory, feeling, spark . . .
always stay with us?

is love permanent, and in that way special?

or is it like most things, impermanent?

and what if we discover that what we believe
to be “love”

is no more than an illusion based on assump-
tion and projection;

can this illusion fade completely?

or is the mere semblance of love something that
is special and permanent?

some 300 years ago, the Sixth Dalai Lama wrote,

Love written in the heart
Can never be erased

is this fact, or just poetry?

it’s 1959 and a young Mike Wallace interviews
The Twilight Zone creator Rod Serling

Serling talks about his start in television, the early
days of TV drama, his battles with intrusive sponsors
and censorship

and speaking about censorship, Wallace, in the
above photo, begins the interview by lighting a
cigarette

he joins Serling, who had already lit up a stogy

the smoke that rises throughout the clip is a re-
minder that TV censorship continues to this day

“Shame is an experience of wanting to hide, of feeling worthless, alienated and isolated . . . Unlike guilt, with which it is often confused, shame is about perceived defects of one’s self rather than about one’s acts.”
- Link

“The origins of shame are varied, and not fully understood. We seem to be programmed to interpret certain words and behavior by others–especially parents and siblings in childhood–as not simply critical of our behavior, but a statement of our worth. This is an especially powerful force coming from parents, under whose authority and supervision we are molded into social beings. While this may be especially pronounced in dysfunctional or abusive homes–alcoholism, sexual abuse, and mental illness come to mind–it occurs even in well-functioning family units, and with speech and actions which are not intended as critical or demeaning, but which are interpreted as such.“
- Link

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.

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consider the events of your life; your personal history

try to remember not only WHAT happened, but also
HOW it felt

now what if, as a philosopher once asked, you were
forced to re-live your life -

made to re-experience EVERY single event, without
the possibility of change, and ALL of the associated
pleasure and pain

and you were to do so again and again and again,
for eternity,

” . . . would you be overcome with despair? Or would you fall to your knees in gratitude?”
- Friedrich Nietzsche

would this kind of existence be closer to Heaven
or to Hell?